Hi Crafty Friends,
I am sharing a card design featuring a lovely spray of posies from the Daydream stamp by Penny Black. This is a very versatile stamp because you have so many ways you can arrange and color it and it makes such a wonderful card for just about any occasion!
This Daydream rubber stamp was designed to give you all the shading and detail, unlike a line drawing (often clear) stamp.I used to groan when I would see a beautiful floral rubber stamp that I loved but when I stamped it the flowers would turn into a blobby mess. Once I discovered a few tips, I had much better luck and now enjoy how quickly you can turn the stamp design into a beautiful card. So, with this in mind, the few tips I can offer are first, and foremost, you must use a stamp positioner so you can stamp over and over in the same spot (we all know this is the beauty of this tool!). Second, slow down (this is a hard one for me!) and ink a small section, maybe a flower or two, spritz it with water, then stamp it.
I start out by inking with my lightest color, mostly to get the shape and light detail of the flower, then add a darker color only in the shaded areas like the center of the petals. I use the dark inks very sparingly, always spritzing and then stamping. Then, with a moist clean brush, I draw the darker colors out toward the tips of the petals being careful not to drown out the lighter color. Then, using the moist brush, I smooth out the lighter colors too if needed. Since I am using a stamp positioner, I can return to an area or particular flower over and over until I get the desired effect so there is no reason to put a ton of ink on the stamp all at once.
Another tip I can offer is to use watercolor markers for the small areas like the centers of flowers, or stems, or applying the shading color. There are a bunch available. My favorite are the Karin markers. They are AWESOME! But I also use distress markers and Tombow markers, whatever gets the job done!
I used the above process for these flowers. I first stamped the flowers with Melon Berry ink and then used a few (it only takes a few) Karin markers for the stems, darker shading color for the petals, and yellow and brown for the centers of the flowers.
When all the flowers and stems were colored, I scribbled a few of the Karin marker colors on my glass mat, loosened them up with water, then lightly splattered the panel.
Finally, I stamped a sentiment from the Penny Black Thinking of You stamp set using Spring Moss ink and mounted it on a Coral card stock panel that was a teeny bit larger so it shows a small border of coral, then onto a cream card base.
Goodies Used:
